The Assam Rifles has registered a case of sedition and defamation against the chief of the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an influential civil society group in Imphal.
A defence source said that a First Information Report (FIR) was registered against COCOMI on July 10, after the outfit gave a call to people “not to surrender weapons.”
After ethnic violence erupted in the State on May 3, more than 4,000 weapons and lakhs of ammunition were either robbed or taken away from police armouries. Despite an appeal made by Home Minister Amit Shah when he visited the State from May 29 to June 1, only a little over 1,600 weapons have been recovered by the police or surrendered by the public. A large number of arms that are still with the public have become a cause of concern for security forces.
